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With an aim to kill Google Docs, Microsoft announces a free Web-based version of Office 2010.

The technical preview version of Microsoft Office 2010, (codenamed Office 14) the successor of Microsoft Office 2007, has been released by the software major. Most interestingly, Microsoft has also announced a free Web-based version of its Office productivity suite, known as Office Web Applications. The radical move by Microsoft is a direct challenge to its arch rival Google and its online office productivity suite, Google Apps.

Office Web will include free online versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote which will work in the three Web browsers (Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari).

Giving a tough competition to Google Docs, Office Web Applications will enable multiple people to simultaneously work on the same document, whether it’s in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or OneNote. It will also allow users to create, edit, access and share Office documents directly in the browser.

The Office Web Applications will also feature user interfaces similar to their desktop counterparts. The new versions of Outlook, OneNote, Publisher and SharePoint Server now have ribbon-based interfaces, which can be customised.

Analysts say the new Office Web Applications seem to be far more powerful than Google’s online applications and should offer much better compatibility with Microsoft Office files.

Office Web Applications can also be used with any mobile phone that has a compatible microbrowser. The company is also streamlining the number of Office editions from eight to five and enhancing each edition with additional applications and features.

“Office 2010 is the premier productivity solution across PCs, mobile phones and browsers,” said Chris Capossela, senior vice president, Microsoft business division, Microsoft. “From broadcast and video editing in PowerPoint, new data visualisation capabilities in Excel, and co-authoring in Word, we are delivering technology to help people work smarter and faster from virtually any location using any device.”

Office 2010 and related products will be available in the first half of 2010.